THE LINKS BETWEEN POVERTY AND CONSERVATION: WORKING ON FIELD-LEVEL ACTIVITIES IN AFRICA

To discuss the linkages between Poverty and Conservation, the Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group (ABCG) held an 8 April 2002 meeting at World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The meeting explored what non-governmental organizations (NGOs), bilateral agencies, and financial institutions are currently doing about the linkages between poverty and conservation; and discussed activities in Africa that conservation NGOs and our partners can do to alleviate poverty and enhance the participation of the local population in conserving their heritage.

With the recent Monterrey Conference on Financing for Development in March 2002 and the World Summit on Sustainable Development approaching in August 2002, attention about the linkages between poverty and conservation are growing. More than 180 nations endorsed "The Millennium Development Goals (MDG)" at the United Nations in September 2000, which has as its first goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, and as its seventh goal to ensure environmental sustainability. Consequently, as the World Bank, bilateral agencies, and other donors seek to implement the MDG and promote these linkages, conservation NGOs will more often have to highlight these linkages when seeking funding and working with developing country governments. In Africa, where poverty is expected to rise during the 21st century, there is special concern about the poverty-conservation linkages as millions of Africans depend on natural resources for their livelihoods.

As the loss of biodiversity is accelerating, poverty is also increasing. As conservation NGOs use larger more holistic landscape approaches to conservation, larger issues that impact conservation such as poverty need to be explored. The meeting discussed how the issues of poverty and conservation must be looked at from multiple levels: international, regional, national, local (rural and urban).